1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to telecommunications in general, and, more particularly, to a technique for connecting and remotely configuring wireless nodes.
2. Related Art
Wireless nodes are configured to communicate on a respective network by setting a number of network configuration parameters. The network configuration parameters may be preconfigured in the wireless node, or may be manually configured through a user interface on the device or through a non-wireless, direct hardware connection such as Ethernet, USB, or serial connections.
The 802.11 standard (“802.11”) refers to a family of specifications developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) for wireless local-area-network (LAN) technology. The IEEE accepted the original 802.11 specification in 1997 and has made several revisions since then. Accordingly, it is assumed that general information about the 802.11 standard are known to those skilled in the art. For example, a portion of this general information may be referenced in the book entitled “802.11 Wireless LAN Fundamentals,” December 2003, by P. Roshan and J. Leary, which is incorporated by reference here in its entirety. Additionally, the 802.11 standard, ANSI/IEEE Std 802.11, 1999 Edition (R2003) entitled “Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications” is also incorporated by reference herein.
In general, 802.11 specifies an over-the-air communications interface between wireless nodes. The communications interface may be between a wireless client and an access point or between two wireless clients, for example. Within the context of 802.11, the Basic Service Set is used to describe a collection of wireless nodes which may communicate together within an 802.11 WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network). The Basic Service Set may, or may not, include an access point. An access point may, for example, provide an intermediary through which other wireless nodes communicate, and the access point may further provide a connection onto a fixed distribution system, such as an Ethernet network. Two types of Basic Service Sets exist: an Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS) and an Infrastructure Basic Service Set (BSS).
A network set up as an IBSS may be referred to as an “ad-hoc network,” while a network set up as an Infrastructure Basic Service Set may be referred to as an “infrastructure network.” An infrastructure network contains an access point, which may then connect a number of wireless clients to a wired network infrastructure or to other wireless network clients. Unlike an infrastructure network, an ad-hoc network does not generally include an access point to connect wireless clients. Rather, the wireless connections in an ad-hoc network provide a direct connection between the wireless clients.
Whether connecting to an infrastructure network or an ad-hoc network, a wireless node identifies the particular network to connect to with a Basic Service Set Identifier (BSSID). Thus, every Basic Service Set, infrastructure or independent, has an identifying BSSID. The BSSID may, for example, be a 48 bit code used to identify a particular Basic Service Set within an area. In the case of an infrastructure network, the BSSID could, for example, be the MAC address of the access point. Associated with an Infrastructure network may also be an alphanumeric Service Set Identifier (SSID). For an ad-hoc network, the BSSID may be randomly generated by a wireless client, and may, for example, correspond to the MAC address of the wireless client that created the IBSS.
Like other wireless nodes, 802.11 wireless nodes may be configured locally at each wireless node such that they can connect to either an ad-hoc or infrastructure network. For example the wireless nodes may be supplied a BSSID, an encryption key, and a channel, which the wireless node uses to establish a connection. The wireless node is typically required to be physically present to input these configuration settings through a user interface. Additionally, some wireless nodes, such as cameras, phones, and printers, may not have a user interface at all, or the user interface may be difficult to use for entering the configuration information.
Other methods of configuring wireless nodes may use a non-wireless connection, such as Ethernet or Universal Serial Bus (USB). However, these configuration methods require additional hardware and circuitry that may not otherwise be necessary, and still require physical access to the wireless node.